Does philosophy have a practical application or is it entirely a theoretical discipline (science)?
Please try to explain this as simply and clearly as possible, as you would explain it to someone who is very far from philosophy.
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Every time such a question arises, it is necessary to clarify with the questioner what he means by the word “philosophy”. Sometimes surprising things are revealed-simply because the layman's idea of philosophy is limited to a small set of very thick and old books, about each of which he was told two pages in a boring textbook. The textbook is boring, nothing is clear, and our textbooks are mostly metaphysics.
I will try to explain with a simple example – and a lot of people will immediately say that philosophy is not that, because this is not like Kant/Marx/Socrates/someone else.
And yet.
There are psychologists – they find out how the child's psyche works.
There are teachers who teach children.
And there are philosophers of education-they ask a simple question: how do we teach children? How to organize schools?
The great American philosopher John Dewey believed that in a normal state, a person does not think. A person thinks when he needs to solve a problem. This took shape in the concept of problem-based learning, according to which students are not just loaded with knowledge, but constantly put in front of them some creative tasks that need to be solved. To make them think.
Dewey's methods seemed so wild that they were banned in our country in 1932.
And our schools were organized differently.
But now every single school in one way or another practically applies John Dewey's philosophy of education, which consists in a reasoned answer to the question ” How to organize schools?”
There is no correct answer to the question “How to organize schools?”. There are many different answers. But the answer that the school management prefers will completely determine its work.
I'm writing a book review. This is my job.
Should I find out “what the author wanted to say” or should I read the book as I understand it now?
These are two different philosophies of literary criticism, each of which is written in a cloud of thick volumes that you will not be told about in textbooks – because you are not a literary critic.
And what philosophy I adopt as the starting point of my work will completely determine its final result.
We have a lot of data about how the economy functions, how the state apparatus works, etc.But still, each of us has our own ideas about how the state should be organized.
A communist, a liberal, an anarchist-all these are supporters of different political philosophies, according to which they will vote in elections – or run the state.
There is a rather boring definition, not made up by me – philosophy deals with non-empirical premises. That is, what we take as axioms in our practice, and what we proceed from.
If a person feels that there is nowhere to “stick” some philosophy and practically apply it, then most likely, his classes are simply too far from the area where this philosophy is used.
Well, not everyone here knows how Wittgensteinian sociology differs from Marxist sociology. Not everyone conducts social research or organizes schools. For some, Frege's theory of meaning, which is on the very first pages of textbooks on semiotics, is a novelty.
And the specialist most likely knows why he needs this or that philosophy.
Scientific aphorism “There is nothing more practical than a good theory.” “ETHICS would be the most practical theory.
Philosophy can and should help to solve absolutely all actual practical problems very successfully. For this purpose, philosophy has a powerful arsenal of scientific and practical methods, techniques, approaches, ideas and good specialists.
But philosophy is overly interested in something completely different – extremely abstract-theoretical and party-political, which is practically of little use or even useless and harmful…
Very rare brilliant philosophers have made a vivid contribution to solving actual concrete and practical problems of life and have given a sample of work, but this is a “drop in the bucket” in comparison with the huge potential possibilities of philosophy.
A specific problem-acute moral insufficiency in all spheres of life in all countries and times is the general source of all concrete and practical negative problems and catastrophes of life. Philosophy is considered formally the champion on this topic, because ETHICS is a part of philosophy. But in practice, philosophy deftly avoids this dangerous and unprofitable topic.
Ethics today is potentially the most practical Science of all existing ones – only this science can and should radically solve all the negative colossal problems of life.
First of all, aren't entirely theoretical disciplines of practical use? For example, mathematics or theoretical physics. The question is posed on the basis of a false juxtaposition.
Secondly, there are practical and even applied sections in philosophy. Practical philosophy is usually called moral philosophy. Within the framework of moral philosophy, there is applied ethics. There are also disciplines such as applied aesthetics and even applied ontology.
Third, the method of philosophy is not limited to theorizing. In ancient India, for example, a pandit was required to have a yogic background. And in modern philosophy there is such a section as experimental philosophy. Plus a number of sections [philosophy of science, philosophy of consciousness, etc.] are directly related to the empirical data of specific sciences. And some sections are directly empirical. Personally, I, for example, deal with the philosophy of religion and the philosophy of law. Both are impossible without field research.
And fourthly, the whole philosophy always has a practical application. A recent example is that the philosopher Jurgen Habermas refused the Sheikh Zayed Book Award ($272,000), because the political practice of this sheikh does not correspond to Habermas ' political philosophy.
Philosophy is the source of all sciences and this is its practical significance. In other words: all sciences, in one way or another, were born as a philosophical understanding of any subject area.
It depends on whether I am willing and able to apply philosophy to the most mundane activity-chopping wood, for example. Why not remember Prometheus, who gave fire?
Philosophy is a purely theoretical discipline that has absolutely no practical application, except that absolutely all sciences were born of philosophy.
Philosophy is a way of knowing the world. You can explore the world practically by digging up a vegetable garden or hitting your fingers with a hammer. But it is also possible theoretically, using observation, logic, the ability to analyze, generalize. Our reasoning: how best to do this or that, or why my neighbor got mad at me, or why people are alone and other people are in a crowd : all this is in a certain sense a philosophy.
I am of the opinion that the task of philosophy is not only to explain the world, but also to remake it. That is, philosophy without its practical application is an empty talking shop.
As soon as it is philosophy that people need, they will establish it and begin to use it, but in the meantime, various profane people call philosophy whatever they want, completely not caring about the correspondence of such a name to their ideas, which in no way reflect the actual state of affairs in the universe…
Philosophy is the science of the most general laws of nature, society, and thought. If you want to understand how everything works, study it. Well, having such an understanding, you will probably find a practical application for it.
Of course it does.
All literature is literally permeated with philosophy.
No writer or poet does not do without philosophical overtones, thoughts and arguments in their works.
And there is nothing to say about the works of various philosophers.
They are all broken down into famous quotes that guide millions of people on the planet.
Philosophy has always had, has and will continue to have practical scientific benefits, since philosophy teaches a person to think logically, to know the world under the conditions of the law of non-contradiction, and to analyze the process of mental activity.�
Truth is understood in correct thinking, i.e. any proof must be based on the Law of Non-Contradiction (and on the axiom), with concrete clarity. Being and thinking are identical. Knowledge of the world is based on the recognition of the law of thinking, otherwise there will be a paradox, as a contradiction.Non-being is a logical representation, an abstraction (like mathematics), but not an ontological proof.
Eternal ideas of philosophy (they are permanent, immobile) not recognized,�
mobile, changeable nature. Knowledge is expressed in relevant statements that have the fullness of scientific, historical, and philosophical substantiation. There are three levels of regulation of knowledge: the level of things, the mental level and the word expressing the thought. But where does the connection come from? This means that a person must go beyond the limits of thought, beyond our sensations. But, a person cannot assert the truth of a thought. The problem is how “I” can determine the accuracy of my knowledge, and confirm the correctness of my thought, which should correspond to the correct state of affairs.Therefore, philosophy teaches us to think logically and correctly, and this is the main practical condition of science: Gobes “consistency is a criterion for the truth of things”, there can be no contradictory connection of things – I. Kant.�
It has. You even live by certain philosophical and semantic principles that you have introduced into educational systems or adopted by default in society.
Only there are reservations. Science implies reproducibility. Philosophy is used at the discretion of society or one individual, which to some extent reflects the approach of eclecticism (combined not always combined) or elitism (combined the best of the best).
No, philosophy has no practical application in the sense of obtaining “the result of research, analysis”, but simply in the sense of “a correct verifiable answer to the question of any discussion”, and it cannot be, it is not a science.
Philosophers, like priests, in earlier times were engaged in generalizing all sorts of interesting ideas, from which the Scientific Method grew and Logic stood out.
What was left without Logic and without Scientific method, in our time has become a simple play on words, and always only metaphors with an indefinite meaning.
Philosophy has practical applications. I'm not a particular expert on it, but I can give you the following examples. For example, the philosophy of Hegel(dialectics) was used by another philosopher, Karl Marx, and the philosophy of Marx and Hegel was used by Lenin. This philosophy helped create the USSR. On the basis of Locke's philosophy, such a current of thought as liberalism developed, which had a great influence on humanity. Plato's philosophy describes various forms of government, and names from his work State are still used today. Namely, democracy, tyranny, monarchy, aristocracy.
There is also a philosophy of science(for each specific scientific discipline and in general), which allows you to define the boundaries, methods, and concept of various sciences. This, accordingly, is of practical use.
There is also a philosophy that specifically focuses on practice and action. For example, the philosophy of Diogenes (who lived in a barrel). For him, it consisted more in all sorts of actions than reasoning, periodically in rather trashy actions and provocations.
I just wrote the first thing I remembered in a couple of minutes, there are other applications.
Just as often, philosophy can be confused with Demagogy.
“Demagogy (other Greek: δημαγωγαα-leading the people, fawning over the people) is a set of oratorical and polemical techniques and means that allow you to mislead the audience and win it over to your side using false theoretical reasoning based on logical errors (sophisms). It is most often used to achieve political goals, in advertising and propaganda “ (c) Wikipedia
Although demagoguery also has a direct practical application, namely the manipulation of those to whom it is directed.